It is well known to provide a gaming device, most typically a slot machine or card gaming machine, that accepts money from a player, holds the money while the player plays the gaming device and enables the player to retrieve the player's money at any time. The games in one embodiment do not require the player to input or insert a wagerable amount of money in the gaming device each time the player wishes to play the game. When the player wins while playing known gaming devices, the gaming devices do not require the player to take the winnings and reinvest them into the gaming device if the player desires to continue play. Known gaming devices therefore provide a credit meter or display, which is a mechanism that maintains and displays a pool of money in the gaming device. The pool can store an amount sufficient to play many games of the gaming device. The pool can also accumulate and store the player's winnings. When the player wishes to stop playing, known gaming devices provide a mechanism by which the player can retrieve the money that remains in the pool.
Historically, known retrieval mechanisms include a cash out mechanism, which pays out the player's money in a desired denomination or form of money. Dollar slot machines (requiring at least a $1 wager) typically issue tokens redeemable for $1 when the player cashes out. Other slot machines can issue actual money such as nickels, dimes, quarters and half dollars. Known slot machines maintain a payout tray limit, such that an operator or attendant is called when the player wins or wishes to cash out an amount above the limit. The limit prohibits the player from having to handle a cumbersome or unsafe amount of coins and enables the machine to store a minimal number of coins at any one time.
Other modern slot machines contain a ticketing system, such that the machine issues a ticket to the player that includes the amount of the player's money printed on the ticket. The player can input money using coins, tokens, paper money or credit or debit cards. In one embodiment, when the machine issues the ticket, the player can input the ticket into other gaming machines equipped for redeeming the tickets, or redeem the ticket for money from an operator attendant. The ticketing systems advantageously enable gaming to take place without the player having to handle tokens or coins.
Known retrieval mechanisms generally present an all or nothing proposition to the player. A player needing money from the machine has to retrieve the total amount that has been inputted into the machine. If the player needs less than all the amount from the machine and still desires to play the machine, the player must retrieve the total amount from the machine and re-input the amount with which the player wishes to continue play. A player needing less than all the amount of money from a known ticketing machine, who still desires to play the machine, must retrieve a ticket from the machine containing the total amount that has been inputted into the machine. When a gaming device allows a coin or a ticket payout, a need exists to allow the player to choose between a coin pay, a ticket pay or both.
A need exists for a more flexible cash out or money retrieval system in known gaming machines and more specifically slot machines having modern ticketing systems. Specifically, a need exists in modern ticketing machines to enable the player to retrieve an amount of money in a form immediately usable by the player, e.g., coin money, tickets, or tokens. These amounts enable the player to make monetary transactions such as playing a neighboring machine and tipping an attendant without having to remove all the money from the machine they are playing. A need also, therefore, exists in gaming machines to enable the player to retrieve less than all the money that has been inputted into or won at the machine. In particular, a need exists to enable a player to quickly retrieve a partial definable amount for the player to use without completely cashing out and/or leaving the gaming device.